Monday, May 1, 2017 (4:00 p.m., Miller Room, Rockefeller Hall Room 221)

Title: Molecular Communication and the Origins of Biological Information Processing

Speaker: Andrew Eckford (Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lassonde School of Engineering, York University)

Abstract: Microbiological systems communicate through the exchange of molecules, such as ligands in signal transduction. Information theory has been very successful analyzing artificial,electromagnetic communication systems — what can it say about biological information processing? In this talk, we give an overview of the current state of biological information theory, and discuss how information theory may be used to explain the origin and evolution of biological information processing systems. We review some of our own results on the Shannon capacity of signal transduction, and we discuss some the engineering and biological significance of these results.

A wine and cheese reception will be held directly after the lecture.